Sources & methodology

Every number, traced back to the FEC filing it came from.

This site's central claim is verifiable: corporate PAC and mega-donor money is reaching Callie Barr's campaign through a middleman-PAC network, even though her own filings show no direct corporate PAC receipts. That claim rests on public Federal Election Commission filings. This page lists every committee cited, links to the specific filings we pulled numbers from, defines every technical term we use, and documents the limitations of the analysis.

Data pulled July 15, 2026 — the same day the Q2 2026 quarterly reports (coverage period 04/01/2026 – 06/30/2026) were filed with the FEC.

Principles

Every committee cited on this site

The FEC assigns every registered federal political committee a nine-character ID beginning with C. The IDs below are the direct link between what this site says and the underlying public record. Click any ID to view that committee's complete filing history on docquery.fec.gov.

The candidates

CommitteeFEC IDRole
Callie Barr for Congress C00837054 Democratic candidate, MI-01 primary — Barr's principal campaign committee
Blomquist for Congress C00914523 Democratic candidate, MI-01 primary — Kyle Blomquist's principal campaign committee
Bergman for Congress C00614214 Republican incumbent — Rep. Jack Bergman's principal campaign committee

The middleman PACs — checks written to Barr in Q2 2026

CommitteeFEC IDRole
Motor City PAC C00507574 Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) leadership PAC. Wrote Barr $5,000 in Q2 2026. Corporate-PAC-heavy funding.
Mitten PAC C00832147 Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) leadership PAC. Wrote Barr $10,000 in Q2 2026. Funded by Majority Fund JFC.
Fight Like Hell PAC C00842104 Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) federal Carey hybrid PAC. Wrote Barr $5,000 on 06/10/2026.
A Pleasant Peninsula PAC C00841908 Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) leadership PAC. Referenced in crossover analysis.
Democracy Summer LPAC C00664318 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) leadership PAC. Wrote Barr $2,000 on 12/03/2025 and $2,000 on 05/12/2026.
PURPOSE PAC C00696450 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.
Midwest Values PAC C00390567 Sen. Al Franken (former, D-MN) leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.
SUMMIT PAC C00538991 Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.
Michigan Independent PAC C00799735 Michigan-focused leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.

The joint fundraising committees (JFCs) — donor pools upstream of the middlemen

CommitteeFEC IDRole
Majority Fund C00904607 JFC that pooled $3.05M from 30 wealthy individuals in the 2026 cycle (zero corporate PACs) and routed $108,220 to Mitten PAC.
Democracy Summer JFC C00898486 JFC paired with Democracy Summer LPAC (C00664318). Pooled six-figure checks from individual mega-donors.

Selected corporate/industry PACs referenced upstream

These are examples of the corporate PACs one hop upstream of Barr's Q2 middleman checks. Every one appears on a middleman's Schedule A — visible on docquery.fec.gov filings for each middleman committee above. Full lists in the on-site tables under "See the evidence."

Corporate/industry PACFEC IDSector
DTE Energy Company PACC00081547Michigan regulated utility
CMS Energy Employees for Better GovernmentC00113118Michigan regulated utility (Consumers Energy parent)
General Motors PACC00040998Automotive OEM
Microsoft Corporation PACC00227546Technology
BlackRock Inc. PACC00477136Asset management
Toyota Motor North America PACC00304202Automotive OEM
FedEx Corporation PACC00068692Transportation / logistics
Verizon Communications Good Government Club PACC00093054Telecommunications
National Association of Realtors PAC (RPAC)C00030718Real estate industry association
American Bankers Association BANKPACC00004275Banking industry association

Additional corporate PACs (Property Casualty Insurers, American Land Title Association, Airbnb, Alliance for Automotive Innovation, American College of Radiology, American Gaming Association, American Hotel & Lodging Association, and 20+ others) appear in the on-site "See the evidence" tables. Each row is verifiable against the middleman PAC's Schedule A on docquery.fec.gov.

Key filings the numbers came from

These are the specific FEC filings the top-level numbers on this site were verified against. Each link opens the raw Schedule A or Schedule B filing on docquery.fec.gov — the exact page listing the itemized transactions.

Barr's Q2 2026 receipts (the $26,250 in PAC checks)

Majority Fund — the $3.05M billionaire pool feeding Mitten PAC

Fight Like Hell PAC — the $102,500 Simon, $50,000 Stryker, $50,000 Samuelson checks

Democracy Summer — the $2,000 + $2,000 = $4,000 to Barr

Bergman receipts (crossover corporate PAC totals)

Why docquery, not fec.gov/data/?

The FEC's searchable database at fec.gov/data/ is the friendlier interface, but it lags the raw filing pipeline. In the days immediately after a filing deadline, numbers on fec.gov/data/ can be incomplete or out of date. docquery.fec.gov posts filings the moment committees submit them. When you want the primary record, use docquery.

Definitions

Leadership PAC (LPAC)

A political action committee established, financed, maintained, or controlled by a candidate or officeholder. Corporate PACs cannot contribute directly to federal candidates in the general fund sense that matters here, but they can contribute to leadership PACs, which then contribute to candidates. This is the mechanism the site documents. See the FEC's own definition.

Joint fundraising committee (JFC)

A committee formed by two or more political committees (candidate committees, party committees, PACs) to jointly raise money in a single transaction. A donor writes one large check to the JFC; the JFC then allocates the money out to member committees within legal per-recipient limits. The effect is that one $134,000 check from a single donor can support 15 downstream committees at once without the individual's name appearing on any of the recipient candidates' own filings. See the FEC guidance.

Carey hybrid PAC

A political action committee with two accounts: a traditional (federally regulated) account that contributes to candidates within federal limits, and a non-contribution ("Super PAC") account that can raise unlimited sums for independent expenditures. Named after the 2011 D.C. Circuit case Carey v. FEC. Fight Like Hell PAC (C00842104) is a Carey hybrid.

Schedule A / Schedule B

Schedule A lists receipts — money coming into a committee, itemized by contributor. Schedule B lists disbursements — money going out, itemized by recipient. Every FEC filing includes both. A contribution from Committee X to Committee Y appears on both committees' filings: on X's Schedule B as a disbursement, and on Y's Schedule A as a receipt. The site cross-checks both sides where possible.

Corporate PAC / industry PAC

A separate segregated fund established by a corporation, labor union, or trade association. Federal law prohibits corporations from contributing to candidates from their treasury funds, but corporate PACs — funded by voluntary employee/member contributions — can contribute to candidates up to $5,000 per election. When we say "corporate PAC" or "corporate/industry PAC" on this site, we mean these SSF-type PACs, plus the industry trade association PACs (Realtors, Insurance, Bankers, etc.) that function similarly.

Cycle

"2026 cycle" means the election cycle running roughly from 01/01/2025 through the 2026 general election. "2024 cycle" runs from 01/01/2023 through the 2024 general election. Where the site cites "cycle-to-date" totals, they run through the Q2 2026 coverage cutoff of 06/30/2026 unless otherwise noted.

Direct check vs. routed check

Direct check = a PAC writes a check to a candidate's principal campaign committee, which appears on the candidate's Schedule A. Routed check = the money reaches the candidate through an intermediary PAC or JFC, so the candidate's filing shows the intermediary's name (not the original donor's). The routing itself is legal; the site documents that it occurs, at what dollar amounts, and from which sources.

Methodology

How the numbers were compiled

  1. Start from Barr's own filings. Pull Barr for Congress (C00837054) 2026 cycle Schedule A. Extract every non-individual (PAC / committee) receipt. This produces the list of intermediary committees that wrote her checks.
  2. Trace one hop upstream. For every intermediary committee (Motor City, Mitten, Fight Like Hell, PURPOSE, Midwest Values, SUMMIT, A Pleasant Peninsula, Democracy Summer, Michigan Independent), pull the intermediary's Schedule A for the same cycle. Identify all corporate PAC and mega-donor receipts.
  3. Trace two hops upstream where relevant. For JFC-fed intermediaries (Mitten via Majority Fund, Democracy Summer LPAC via Democracy Summer JFC), pull the JFC's Schedule A to identify the individual mega-donors.
  4. Cross-reference Bergman. For each corporate PAC identified upstream of Barr, pull Bergman for Congress (C00614214) Schedule A across the 2024 and 2026 cycles and check for receipts from the same PAC. This produces the crossover table.
  5. Cross-reference Blomquist. Do the same for Blomquist for Congress (C00914523). Every corporate/industry PAC in the crossover table shows $0 to Blomquist.
  6. Verify each figure against the raw filing. Every itemized dollar amount on this site is traced back to a specific line on a specific Schedule A or Schedule B. Aggregated totals are the sum of those itemized lines.

What "$202,000 into the LPAC network" means

The $202,000 figure in the crossover section is the sum of 2024 + 2026 cycle receipts from the 13 corporate/industry PACs listed in the crossover table to the three Michigan-Democrat leadership PACs (A Pleasant Peninsula, Mitten, Motor City) that make up the LPAC pool feeding Barr. It is a network-level number, not a Barr-only number. Of that pool, roughly $7,000 has been passed downstream to Barr specifically; the remainder has been passed to roughly 30 other Democratic candidates. Both facts are shown on the four-column crossover diagram.

What "$26,250 in PAC checks in Q2" means

This is the sum of Schedule A · line 11C entries on Barr's Q2 2026 report. All nine intermediary PACs listed on the site appear on that page, at those amounts, on that filing. The math adds to $26,250.

What "$5,000 = the legal max" means

A federal PAC can contribute $5,000 per election to a candidate committee. Primary and general are separate elections. So a $10,000 PAC check to a candidate this cycle is normally $5,000 for the primary + $5,000 for the general. If the candidate loses the primary, the general-election portion must be refunded. See the FEC's contribution limits chart.

Limitations of this analysis

The site should be read with these caveats:

Disclaimer

MI-01 Money Trail is an independent citizen review of Federal Election Commission filings in Michigan's 1st Congressional District. It is not authorized by, endorsed by, coordinated with, or paid for by any candidate, candidate's campaign committee, political party, or political action committee.

The site does not solicit or accept donations. It is not an independent expenditure or an electioneering communication under 52 U.S.C. § 30104. It contains no express advocacy for the election or defeat of any candidate.

All dollar figures on this site are derived exclusively from public filings made by candidate committees, political action committees, and joint fundraising committees with the Federal Election Commission. Every figure can be independently verified by any reader at docquery.fec.gov.

Nothing on this site constitutes an allegation of illegal conduct by any candidate, committee, donor, or officeholder. Every transaction described is a legal contribution under current federal campaign finance law.

Corrections log

If you believe a figure on this site is wrong, email corrections@followmi01.com with (1) the specific claim, (2) the corrected figure, and (3) a link to the source FEC filing that contradicts our figure. Confirmed corrections are published within 48 hours and logged below.

Corrections applied on 07/23/2026

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